Thir­teen par­tic­i­pants un­der the MCash pro­gramme re­ceived grants rang­ing from RM13,000 to RM30,000 in the form of equip­ment, ma­chin­ery or busi­ness as­sets to de­velop and ex­pand their busi­nesses in the North­ern Cor­ri­dor, while two ben­e­fi­cia­ries re­ceived grants for real es­tate de­vel­op­ment un­der the Pro­gram Dana Mu­dah­cara @NCIA.

“Pro­grammes such as MCash and Dana Mu­dah­cara are some of the peo­ple-cen­tric ini­tia­tives car­ried out by NCIA. We are happy to col­lab­o­rate with Ter­aju to as­sist Bu­mi­put­era mi­cro-en­trepreneurs in the North­ern Cori­dor en­joy a bet­ter liveli­hood. This is in line with our ul­ti­mate ob­jec­tive of achiev­ing ‘Growth with So­cial Eq­uity’,” said NCIA chief ex­ec­u­tive Datuk Redza Rafiq.

“We be­lieve grants such as these will act as cat­a­lysts for these mi­croen­trepreneurs in their ef­forts to de­velop their busi­nesses, which in turn will help up­lift the so­cio-eco­nomic sta­tus of Bu­mi­put­eras, specif­i­cally in Perlis. This is also in line with the 2050 Na­tional Trans­for­ma­tion (TN50) ob­jec­tive to cre­ate a thriv­ing and vi­brant eco­nomic en­vi­ron­ment,” he added.

The 13 ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the MCash pro­gramme are in­volved in busi­nesses such as food and bev­er­age, health and spa prod­ucts, bar­ber shop, laun­dry ser­vices, com­puter in­dus­try, as well as de­sign and print­ing. The grants are mainly tar­geted at grad­u­ates of lo­cal train­ing in­sti­tu­tions or uni­ver­si­ties.

“NCIA and Ter­aju have also for­mu­lated two meth­ods to mea­sure the im­pact of MCash on the ben­e­fi­cia­ries. This in­cludes the MCash 20 En­trepreneurs Guid­ance pro­gramme, where 20 par­tic­i­pants are se­lected for fur­ther de­vel­op­ment, as well as an Out­put and Out­come Eval­u­a­tion pro­gramme,” said Redza.

“We are con­fi­dent MCash will not only help these mi­cro-en­trepreneurs ex­pand their busi­nesses, but also in­crease the longevity of Bu­mi­put­era SMEs en­ter­prises,” he added.

A grant of 15 per cent of the over­all cost el­i­gi­ble for in­fra­struc­ture com­po­nents and equip­ment acts as a cat­a­lyst for in­vest­ment by Bu­mi­put­era com­pa­nies, es­pe­cially in high im­pact Na­tional Key Eco­nomic Ar­eas sec­tors. Min­i­mum cost of projects for con­sid­er­a­tion to re­ceive fund­ing is at least RM500,000.